...light was super flat...Clipped in, headed off towards the trees as usual when... whats this? Am i? hang on? Im freefalling? Smashed into the ground in a crumpled heap. After a couple of seconds of bewilderment and stunned amazement (and obviously pain), i looked up. The bastards had cut a path through that part so people could get to the crest easier after coming off the lift. Its a 2 meter fekkin drop!...

same thing happened to me a couple seasons ago: blissfully surfing deep pow in flat light when, suddenly, I'm lying 7 ft below at the bottom of a hard cat track with a backache and sore ankles. It was a familiar area that's never had a cat track traversing it. No rope or posted signs or anything. Total dumbass move on the part of mtn staff that coulda really effed someone up and caused legal trouble

Day 2: Local hill again. Wife and co-worker tagged along. In the past few days they made an insane amount of snow, and the snow they made the night before was fantastic. You know..as fantastic as man made can get . Nice and dry and held an edge like a boss. Wasn't too chopped up when we got there around noon. Blue bird day and warm, temps hovering just above freezing. Rode the t.rice again as I have a new love affair with traditional camber. The groomers left some nice little lips all over the place and tons of rollers. Nothing big, but just enough to boost off of and get a few feet of air.

Felt so good yesterday. Was focusing on practicing ollies most of the day. Just hauliin ass and throwing ollies off anything with the slightest lip. Had some pretty good ones mixed in there. It's weird, on a skate board I have an ollie of almost 3ft if I try, but on a snowboard (before yesterday) I could maybe get a sloppy few inches of awful form. Don't know what it is, but it just feels so wrong to me to try and ollie on a snowboard. Probably cause I can't slide my front foot up as you do on a skateboard. Camber really helps though, and that t.rice is sick with how much you can load it up with and the amount of pop you get in return.

This board really is making me rethink EVERYTHING I thought I wanted in the past few years. Contemplating selling all my rocker boards but one (to keep for the one MAYBE two days a year I get to ride "pow") and picking up two traditional camber sticks. One for bombing groomers/cruisers, and one for jumps and jibbing. The more I play around with this thing the more I notice rocker (for me at least) is cheating my style and robbing me of performance. Everything is just better on camber IMO

Anyways, here are two pictures to post up of why I normally don't post pictures of my Ohio days, haha. Brutally small, over priced, crowded, but still fun if you keep an open mind (and crack some beers).

Oh, and they had an airbag set up for the weekend. Sat around and watched some kids try and hit it while we had some drinks on the patio. Every once in a while someone would actually get some air off the thing, but IMO they effed up where the roll in was. Too close to the bag, and all the lighter kids couldn't get enough speed. It seemed anyone under 180 was too light to really hit it. Everyone was trying to straight line it, but only getting 8 feet or so off the lip. Picture to show just how close the roll in was for this thing....

Arrows show the roll in and lip for the bag. I know the picture is shitty, but you can get the point. Man I would of been pissed if I spent the money to hit that and couldn't get enough speed to do anything...

keep'em coming. we love seeing pictures of "brutally small, over priced, crowded" midwest resorts...makes us feel better about our small local resorts. But seriously, almost everyone's local resort is smaller than someone elses. When I go to Tahoe (rarely), my local mtn seems so depressing. Be glad you can drive there in less than an hour, too.

thing that sticks out in your pics is the all the lights and snow blowing equipment...detracts from the winter mtn vibe, imo. I'm glad my mtn doesn't have night riding...I don't have to look at all that scaffolding and I'd be too tired from the day to do it anyhow.

thing that sticks out in your pics is the all the lights and snow blowing equipment...detracts from the winter mtn vibe, imo.

Couldn't agree with you more, but the thing is, without all those guns we couldn't ride in Ohio. Annual snowfall for this place (mad river mountain) is 28 inches I believe. Mix that with how unstable our temps out most of that snow only sticks around for a day or two. The only way we have a season in Ohio is because temps get down cold enough at night to crank out lot of snow. Mix that with a ratio of about an acre per snow gun, and it keeps us riding for about 3 months of the year. Place is around 144 acres, with something like 133 guns.

Night riding is pretty fun, but something the wife and I usually only do 2 or 3 times out of our season. It can get old real fast.

which year cambered t-rice do you have? that thing is a poppy beast. even the c2 model shot me to the moon when I rode it.

It's an 07/08 model. Rocking a 157. Thing is insane. Really glad my friend doesn't ride anymore and that he is letting me use it for the season. Like I said before, with the new boots I am able to scale down to a smaller WW on boards now, and totally dig NON wide boards again.

Being riding in Varingskollen first time today. It is kind of a "park only resort", so alot of jumps and rails. But man, I haven't met worse iced jumps. Did'nt land any stuff, to afraid of falling and smashing all my bones into pieces...

day 40. groomers firmed up a bit today, but it was super fast and fun, and great weather. rode solo all day and did speed runs from top to bottom. the slash ATV is a beast. the faster the better. reminds me of old unincs, and is exactly what I would expect out of Gigi's daily board. loving it. boosting scary fast roller ollies, carving, high speed tripods, and there was one side hit in particular that was primo.. finally! perfect for lofty back 1 variations. I missed that hit being so good; it's probably been 6 years since it was so perfect.

Day 2: its been 32 days since the last time I went out, long awaited and well worth the early morning wake up. Didn't get much sleep for the whole week so I tried to get in my ZZzz's last night. I could have saved 10% on my lifts if I had an airmiles card! I'll know this for next time.

Its been a long while since I rode on soft powder snow. it was great! Spent the day riding switch and had 2 hard falls, I could hear my spine crack with each impact as I rolled down a couple of feet. Didn't really feel any pain but it just did not sound right so I laid there for a little bit just in case before I got up to continue my switch down the hill ( =

I was hoping to get my switch down by the end of the day but it'll be on the next time I go out and I'll stay out of the steeper blues and black, not the way to learn haha

I got in some 180s to get on my switch, felt good to do that again. Also tried to do some Tripods but I couldn't keep it for long, dunno why but I think i might need to lean into it more, I was doing it on the Reverse Crew, a lot easier to get on the soft flex nose than the stiffer tail. Also couldn't get keep my press on either ) =

It started to RAIN!, oh so shitty to ride in and it snuffed the stoke, called it a day.

Day 5. No new snow for over a week but the warm conditions made the snow all soft. I rode park for most of the day and Mt Hood Skibowl finally put some real effort into making the park super great. Boxes on one side, rails on the other... YOUR CALL. I tried my first FS Board slide on a box. It was mighty scary. Something about sliding backwards.. not my cup of tea. The highlight of my trip. I went 55.6 mph down the slopes according to an app call AlpineReplay. Great day!

day 41, headed up early before work to get a few runs. rode with my friend brian who is the other slasher in Juneau at the moment with his paxson 58. more groomer speed runs, and we hit that perfect side hit again for some fun back 1s... I could do those all day every day.

First day ever backcountry riding. Tahoe backcountry near Rifle Peak by Incline Village. Also, first every GoPro video. Lessons learned: Snowshoeing is way harder than simply hiking. Bring more water than you think you'll need. Always stay higher on the slope than the person who knows the route. I'll get out there again (once I recover) but now at least I can check that off my bucket list. Enjoy! (sorry about the low POV of the camera at times)
dafuq... where did the YouTube upload button go? IE10 is starting to annoy me
http://youtu.be/t0MUJWVFetM

day 42. finally got to ride with the whole crew.. jerms, dylan, haden, and phil. filmed a bit with phil for a homeschool thing for their blog. really fun day.. got a few new inches of wet stuff that padded the whole mountain, and it was pretty decent off the groomed stuff. stoked! did our springtime laps in this spring-like weather.

and a clip of the first dude that did it. no crazy line or anything, but I was just testing out the zoom on my latest canon point and shoot (powershot SX260). 20x zoom, standing at the top lift station from across the whole bowl. this was hand-held, and the image stabilization helped a bit. not bad at all for a pocket camera!

it's big. I've only un-lazied myself enough to go all the way out to that ridge once, and we did the chute to looker's left (just out of frame left), which is smaller. when you're on top of it, it looks about as big as you assume the big chute is... so yeah, the big one is big. it's like a gully down a big mountain line, haha.

After spending the whole week shredding Tahoe in a sweatshirt under sunny skies it was quite an awakening back in -5* windchill and snowguns being blown everywhere. Appreciate the effort to build our base but damn it was cold.

Got a few park laps in and decided it was just too dang cold to ride after dark. Taking the good ol' Salomon Official out on saturday to see how it feels going back to camber. Considering it in my board purchase this spring.

I'm not sure what you mean... you just ride down it, that's all.. haha. the video is boring, no gnarly riding on it that day, but I just wanted to test the zoom. on a day with the right snow conditions, that place is so sick. steep, a few good hits on the way down, and there's that lip to looker's left that you can slash real good as you go.

anyway.. day 44 with Jeremy. same snow conditions as all week.. slushy, soft, fun, with some pow stashes. we mainly rode this very short little traverse (if you can even call it that) where you duck a couple ropes on the side of the run at the top, and there's a pretty awesome pow field that few people tend to ride. had some awesome turns in there... sooo fun. there were also like 4-5 legit tree jibs in a row down the side of it, which was rad.

all photos of jerms

the "park" (three boxes) is at the bottom so we went through there each time. OMFG TAILPRESS!!!!

It was a cold weekend in Jay Peak, VT. Temperatures were averaging lows of -20degC. Some crazy high winds on certain lifts, so bad that they had to shut some of them down. Got some cold burn on my face from the first day, knew to totally cover up for the 2 days after. Runs were VERY icy up top with exposed rock and roots in the glades. Tore up our bases. Definitely not an ideal weekend at Jay Peak but had some nice soft spots where the sun hit. Can't complain about 3 consecutive bluebird days. Tiring weekend altogether but a good time still.

Day three: Wifey and I drove up to Holiday Valley NY for the weekend to party and ride with friends we haven't seen for a while. Got to the resort and drove around for at least 30 minutes trying to find a place to park. Had to walk another 20-30 minutes to get to a lift. Not the best way to start a day, but it was blue bird and warm when we left the car so couldn't complain. Temps were in the high teens but felt so much warmer than that with the sun blasting. As soon as we got to the hill clouds took over and became VERY flat light. Kind of bummed since I grabbed my sunny day lenses over my ambers when we left the car. Couldn't see shit all day.

Despite the lack of any thaw-freeze cycles in the past two weeks, the trails were quite icy. The snow that wasn't ice held an edge great, but out of nowhere you would hit an ice patch and totally wash out. Kind of frustrating/sketchy.

Rode the T.Rice again, as I can't get over the damn thing when it comes to hard pack. The place did have a TON of boosters/rollers on every trail, so spent most the day making sub-par carves and working on my ollies.

Around two it got SUPER busy. Like...dangerously busy. lift lines weren't bad, but congestion on the slopes was sketch. Doesn't really show of sketchy it was, but all those black dots are people just creepin down the hill...

Might not seem like a ton of people, but it literally was like that top to bottom, on 90 percent of the runs we went on. We opted to go grab some food and beers.

Drank said beers and went back out for another 2 hours or so, then called it day after they turned on the lights. Snow was just too beat up, and too many noobs criss crossing all the runs. Didn't feel like getting hurt. Head back to my friends house for hot tubs and cases.

Day 3.4: We were planning on hitting up a private place just down the road, but my friends roommate could only get 2 lift passes, and there were 5 of us. We ended up just not going out at all as everyone was too hungover to get mobilized before 3pm, so a friend that was in town, the wife and I grabbed some more beers and some trees, and hiked my friends back yard for the better part of the afternoon. Nothing big or "exciting", but it was a damn fun time, and better than we expected. About a foot of dry pow (with zero base) in his back yard with a little roller at the bottom you could get a few feet of air off of. I have to say, it was one of the more fun times I have had in a while riding. It was just such a chill time. That and it was fun to press around/tripod/pow manual with a beer in the hand .

Seriously though, damn fun time. We also learned you can get way more speed on the hill than anyone thought, so my friend might build a back yard park this coming fall up there. Sink some rails into the ground, make a roll in at the top and so on. Should be rad.

One of the wife hiking up...

Pretty much the same shot, but really liked this one...

The wife cell phone videoed the tiny hit at the bottom...might post one of those up later...dunno. Pretty lame sauce stuff if you weren't there, but one of the kids did try a misty 720 and landed on his face...which was pretty damn funny. Had to kind of be there though....

We were going to ride this morning, but woke up to about a tenth of an inch of freezing rain, so we just called it a trip and drove home. Just two more weeks and I'll be up in VT, so counting my losses on this trip, and getting ready for the next.

Day 19, resort groomers. Thought I'd have a lot more days by now the way the season started, but you know. Knee was feeling pretty good today, things are looking up and I intend to get after it from here on out

Day 2 was yesterday at Hunter Mountain NY. Definately a good past two days, the first day i got up a little late and had to drive 30 miles to handle some business, but scored a free pass from a friend that was finished for the day. Since the house we rented is literally on the mountain, it was a 2 minute ride to the mountain. so i got there around 2, and rode til close unfortunately i was solo, but i got some good turns in, definately made some progress.

Day 3 was today, at Hunter again. rode solo again most of the day, lots of good fake snow, it was really soft up there today. i found myself really pushing myself today, i was charging the mountain hard. Towards the middle of the day i met up with some of the skiers who were staying with us. after some name calling, we decided to lap the park... didnt turn out to bad, landed my first jump, just a small little kicker, but i was proud of myself. the fellas decided to up the ante on me and go off a 15 foot kicker... didnt end well, they both ate it hard, i was the last to go and rather than attempting, i had to go on a rescue mission for their skis and poles. they both had a double dismount, luckily everyone is okay, and i got a good laugh out of their stupidity.

on a side note i saw a sierra stunt up on Hunter Mountain today, could it be anyone on here?

Day 3: pushed in a third day this season and the conditions were pretty good in some spots, had some soft white stuff to ride on and underneath it all was ICE. It was everywhere. but that's how it is out east and the fluctuating temps =_=". Still had some pretty good runs in, one of the buddies I went with has now surpassed me, going down faster no fear of speed for sure. I'm afraid of catching an edge and really eating it. Wanted to ride switch but I wouldn't have been able to keep up.

day 48. I miss splitting often. I guess I am in full control of that though, hah. fun day, nice to get some exercise. went to a new area.. the ride down is kind of short, but with some rad terrain. conditions today were a few inches of good snow on top of a breakable crust. it wasn't anything epic, but I had a good time sliding down it.

me courtesy of Jeremy

jerms

looking out toward the ocean

eaglecrest parking lot

wedding bowl area, where we tend to go when we don't just do eaglecrest. top center is roughly where we drop from. that's where all the photos from my last splitting trip are from.

day 49... sooooooo much fun. rode solo til the end of the day. lapped the east side and did the hit line/speed runs as usual. had a couple inches of new snow overnight that made everything feel super soft... conditions were superb on that side of the mountain. so many awesome little hits and tranny finders linked together. love love love the k2 parka, so glad I picked it up last year.

I'm not sure why my videos aren't showing up anymore.. codes must have changed or something. anyway, day 50 today. first actual pow day since..... the beginning of the season? super fun. heavy, but fast and radical. rode the steep woods with jerms all day and ran my gopro for the first time while riding chairs this year. got some fun stuff including rad crashes, and my first tomahawk (double, maybe triple, can't remember) in years. it was awesome.

rode my slash ATV. camber on a pow day? it was sweet.

first day riding with the gopro this year on chairlifts.. I don't miss all the editing.

^^^ I had a couple (ok 3) on my first day with the T.Rice last year before I figured out my setup . . . Honestly I didn't think they were that great! But it definitely taught me some important lessons on how to ride my new deck.

Day 20 for me today, more groomers at the resort with my wife and a friend. Sun was out and actually the resort is riding real nice, I think I might head back out there tomorrow. We're ready for a pow day in Tahoe for sure.

Hadn't been on my custom vrocker for a while, very much enjoyed being back on that stick. I know everybody around here is up on camber's tip (and I get it) but I think that might be my favorite ride. Also there was a retro/gaper party at the lodge so that was a lot of fun as well.

^^^ I had a couple (ok 3) on my first day with the T.Rice last year before I figured out my setup . . . Honestly I didn't think they were that great! But it definitely taught me some important lessons on how to ride my new deck.

Day 20 for me today, more groomers at the resort with my wife and a friend. Sun was out and actually the resort is riding real nice, I think I might head back out there tomorrow. We're ready for a pow day in Tahoe for sure.

Hadn't been on my custom vrocker for a while, very much enjoyed being back on that stick. I know everybody around here is up on camber's tip (and I get it) but I think that might be my favorite ride. Also there was a retro/gaper party at the lodge so that was a lot of fun as well.

-b

Just bought a joystick this year...absolutely love it...been riding strictly camber since the beginning but this board is too much fun not to own :)

So much for talking up my board . . . Day 21 destroying groomers with my wife again. After an hour or so found some nice granular on steeps and was carving some turns switch when BAM! my board shot me in the air for what was a really gnarly modified tomahawk spin crash. There were a couple unexpected spins, yaws and flips but I got it under control and despite some initial fear I may have re-injured my knee everything was cool.

Upon inspection I found a "fold" kind of crack/gash in my topsheet with a slight accompanying bend in the sidewall that you can feel through the ptex, and I guess the tail of my board (which was the front at the time) must have completely folded and sent me into a death spin/yaw combo. This is the topsheet, the middle of that crack is all the way through the topsheet/expoxy lamination. Weird right?

I guess I'll need to fix this in the usual way (i.e., put a sticker over it). But honestly I don't think I can trust this deck anymore, maybe I'll need to replace with a joystick like shwazy.

For fun I brought my gps here's a snapshot of our morning overlaid on google earth:

That program is rad

-b

EDIT: P.S. Oh yeah, in other gear-related news, I lost a speed zone and ripped the tongue out of one of my drivers. Which was awesome. So probably I'll need to fix that with some duct tape.

To be honest it feels like I've gone out more times than this in this season. But today's condition were as good as it gets here in the east. Nice soft powdery snow! fell on my ass but thanks to the soft pow.. my butt was spared! found a bunch of little bumps and humps to launch off of and pulled off a few grabs too, felt good Wish I had some video footage so I could see myself

Partway through I notice burton was have a demo day so I jumped at the chance and demo'ed a couple boards and their EST Cartels the binders were comfortable, but not as responsive as I would like em to be. But I'm also getting heel lift in my boot now so that's partly to blame.

wanted to stay and play a little longer but the buddies I was with today couldn't hold it down.. they were tapping out. ahhh but it was still a great day, no injuries just soreness.

barely got to ride switch today because I was having way to much fun shredding my goofy stance. This may be the end of my season... feels like the end of it is near.

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